


He gave me a flower and inside there was a diamond ring

by Hieiandshino



Series: you let your body burn like never before [5]
Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Young Avengers
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Or At Least I Tried
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-30
Updated: 2013-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-13 09:58:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/822980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hieiandshino/pseuds/Hieiandshino
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She loves him as much as she can love someone. Tommy is Hawkeye’s partner and lover and friend and brother, but Kate Bishop still is the girl who needs time to understand that a relationship is neither a weakness nor a death sentence.</i>
</p>
<p>(Tommy/Kate week, Day Five: Fluffy. Unrevised work)</p>
            </blockquote>





	He gave me a flower and inside there was a diamond ring

**Author's Note:**

> Marvel (all media types) does not belong to me.
> 
> Set after the end _Young Avengers: The Children’s Crusade_ but it diverges from the canon.
> 
> English isn’t my first language and this fanfic wasn’t revised by my beta. In other words: there will be mistakes.

It’s a ball and he is here.

Kate is twenty-five and still counting — only God knowing how — and she has more scars than friends and more enemies than pictures on magazines, but, suddenly, she is afraid. Tommy hates things like this, rich people’s parties, boring and slow, and yet he moves as if he belongs — and, as Kate thinks of this, she smiles because this means he belongs everywhere —, searching for a shade of purple he recognizes; looks around to see a cascade of black hair or to smell a scent he knows too well. And Tommy does, eventually. After that day during the siege of Asgard, all those years ago, when they were innocent and so _young_ , he seems to be able to find Kate anywhere.

It makes her stomach flutter as she notices how much he cares for her.

Tommy smiles and approaches Kate, a flower on his hand. It’s a rose, still in bloom, and it’s painted purple like her dress and like her uniform. It’s something silly and cute and, for a moment, she stops breathing, thinking that maturity is coming along with him, because it’s unusual and— and—

—and _scary_. She loves him as much as she can love someone. Tommy is Hawkeye’s partner and lover and friend and brother, but Kate Bishop still is the girl who needs time to understand that a relationship is neither a weakness nor a death sentence.

However, the way Tommy marches towards her, smiling and holding the flower with such delicacy, in a way he never hold anything else but her, Kate finds she is more afraid than ever. He refuses people’s feelings; why would he accept his own now? She finds herself looking for possible escapes, but it is too late: Tommy Shepherd is so close and running was always his ability; not hers.

So Kate holds her ground and waits for him to approach her. When Tommy comes to a halt in front of her, he’s smiling but she is not. He doesn’t seem to care. “Tommy, what are you doing here?” Kate asks, a little wary.

“You invited me.” It’s all he says, calmly. With the soft smile, the pale skin, the fair hair and the blue eyes, he looks like a supernatural creature. Tommy sometimes seems out of time; a creature that will bring you doom, but also happiness.

Kate has no time to fall for him again. “You refused.”

“‘Had an idea. ‘Decided to come.” He answers, short and objective, and looks around the ballroom, and, suddenly, the place seems to have come out a book or a fairytale: a golden hall, full of candles and beautiful people; smiles and invitations; alcohol and bliss. And Tommy, in the middle of all this; the ethereal man inside of a dream.

Kate suddenly feels too common; too out of place. She asks herself if Teddy ever felt like this around Billy and remembers she is the only one without powers. It never tasted this bitter to realize how human she is. However, before Kate feels bad for herself, or worse, the flower appears near her face. Tommy looks at her, expectantly, and so she gives in and analyses the purple of its petals and the details of the flower.

That’s when Kate sees something stuck inside the rose.

Intrigued, she takes the flower on her hands and, with all the delicacy she has, Kate opens the middle of the flower just enough to take a piece of paper out of the rose. It comes with a ring. Her heart skips a beat before Kate can even notice what that means. They have been dating for far too long and have known each other even longer, but neither of them ever asked if the other wanted to _marry_. A ‘no’ threatens to emerge from her mouth but she holds it together with her breath.

 Then, she reads the paper and lets a relieved laugh escape.

_Be my Valentine?_

Tommy smirks and lifts one of his eyebrows as if asking her what she had thought when she saw the ring. Kate always thought he was a self-centered prick, but now he is a bastard son of a bitch, too. She wants to joke, she wants so bad, because then it would be easy to ignore the fact the little purple rose with the ring and the message inside of it, doesn’t mean anything when it clearly does; she just doesn’t know what it is.

So Kate breaths in and out and tells him: “It’s not Valentine’s Day.”

Tommy agrees. “I know. But it felt appropriated.”

She doesn’t understand him anymore. Kate remembers a time when he was a simple boy she could read and giggles internally, because Tommy was never simple, only easy to read. “Why?”

Tommy smiles that type of smile that says he knows her for far too long. He opens his mouth for a moment and then closes it, thinking better. There is this sparkle on his eyes that says he can make Kate understand without so many words and, when he finds the right ones, he grins like a child. “Because I can. Because I want. Because you need.” He pauses for a second and corrects himself. “Because _we_ need.”

It should make no sense at all, and yet it does. Relationships are neither a weakness nor a death sentence, Kate Bishop. They are the beginning of something as strong and as beautiful as life itself. Like you feel, right now, dancing with Tommy Shepherd — who shares the same fears as you but is willing to overcome them — on a boring party, a purple flower, so silly and cute, in one of your hands.

**Author's Note:**

> I think Tommy and Kate both fear having a relationship and what it implies, so I wanted to write something where they would overcome this fear, or find a way to do it (together). It sucked, but there you go!
> 
> And I know the description of Tommy is way too perfect but I study Potuguese Literature and we are studying the moment where the woman started being admired on a mystic level while she was still seem as an object. And since it’s one of my favorite classes, I decided to play a little and make Kate see Tommy, on a moment like this, as someone bigger than life itself, looking like a supernatural creature because she is in love with him. I like to believe Tommy looks at her the same way during the fanfic.


End file.
